_Monday, October 16th._
The morning was showery, but we were obliged to continue our walk, so we
left Keswick with the intention of visiting the Falls of Lodore, the
large Bowder Stone, and the Yew Trees in Borrowdale, and afterwards
crossing over the fells to visit the graves of the poets at Grasmere. We
had been recommended to ascend the Castle Rigg, quite near the town, in
order to see the fine views from there, which included Bassenthwaite
Lake and Derwent Water. The poet Gray, who died in 1771, was so much
impressed by the retrospect, and with what he had seen from the top
where once the castle stood, that he declared he had "a good mind to go
back again." Unfortunately we had to forgo even that ascent, as the rain
descended in almost torrential showers. So we journeyed on in the rain
alongside the pretty lake of Derwent Water, which is about three miles
long and about a mile and a half broad, the water being so clear, we
were informed, that a small stone could be seen even if five or six
yards below the surface. It was certainly a lovely lake, and, with its
nicely wooded islands dotting its surface, recalled memories of Loch
Lomond. The first of these islands, about six acres in extent, was named
the Vicar's or Derwent Island, on which a family mansion had been
erected. On Lord's Island, which was quite near the side, were the ruins
of an old summer-house built by the Ratcliffe family with the stones
from their ruined castle on Castlerigg. The third island, which was in
the centre of the lake, also had a summer-house that had been built
there by the late Sir Wilfrid Lawson, composed of unhewn stone and
covered with moss to make it look ancient. This was known as St.
Herbert's Island, after a holy hermit who lived there in the sixth
century, the ruins of whose hermitage could still be traced. It was said
that so great and perfect was the love of this saintly hermit for his
friend St. Cuthbert of Holy Island, whose shrine was ultimately settled
at Durham, that he used to pray that he might expire the moment the
breath of life quitted the body of his friend, so that their souls might
wing their flight to heaven in company.
Although not so large as Lake Windermere, Derwent Water was considered
the most beautiful of the lakes because of these lovely islands on its
surface and the grand hills that encircled it. This lake of unsurpassed
beauty was associated both in name and reality with the unfortunate Earl
of Derwentwater, who suffered death for the part he took in the Jacobite
rising in 1715, and to whom Lord's Island belonged. He was virtually
compelled by his countess to join the rising, for when she saw his
reluctance to do so, she angrily threw her fan at his feet, and
commanded him take that and hand her his sword. The Earl gravely picked
it up, returned it to her, and, drawing his sword, cried, "God save King
James!" The Jacobites were supporters of James II, who was supplanted by
William III, Prince of Orange, in 1689, James then retreating to
Ireland, where he was defeated at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690. The
rising in which the Earl of Derwentwater took part in the year 1715 was
in support of the son of James II, James Edward, whose adherents were
defeated at Preston in November of the same year, the unfortunate Earl,
with many others, being taken prisoner. The son of this James Edward was
the "Bonnie Prince Charlie" so beloved of the Scots, who landed to claim
the English Crown in 1745, and was defeated at the Battle of Culloden in
1746, where the Jacobite movement found its grave. Much sympathy was
felt at the time for the young Earl of Derwentwater, and there was a
tradition in the family that in times of great peril a supernatural
figure appeared to warn them of approaching fate. It is said that when
his lordship was wandering over the hills, a figure approached clothed
in the robe and hood of grey which the supernatural figure always wore,
gave him a crucifix, which was to render him proof against bullet and
sword, and then immediately disappeared. The Earl joined the insurgents,
who were defeated by the Royal troops at Preston, and he, with other
leaders, was taken to London, placed in the Tower, and condemned to
death for treason. His wife, taking the family jewels with her, implored
King George I, on her knees, for mercy; and Sir Robert Walpole declared
in the House of Commons that he had been offered £60,000 if he would
obtain Lord Derwentwater's pardon; but all efforts were in vain, for he
died by the axe on Tower Hill, February 24th, 1716, and his estates were
forfeited to the Government.
[Illustration: FALLS OF LODORE.]
We enjoyed our walk along Derwentwater in spite of the weather, but as
we approached Lodore, and heard the noise of the waters, we realised
that we had scored one great advantage from the continued rain, for we
could not have seen the falls to better advantage, as they fully carried
out the description of Southey, written when he was Poet Laureate of
England, in the following jingling rhyme:
"How does the water come down at Lodore?"
My little boy asked me thus, once on a time,
Moreover, he task'd me to tell him in rhyme;
Anon at the word there first came one daughter.
And then came another to second and third
The request of their brother, and hear how the water
Comes down at Lodore, with its rush and its roar,
As many a time they had seen it before.
So I told them in rhyme, for of rhymes I had store.
And 'twas my vocation that thus I should sing.
Because I was laureate to them and the king.
Visitors to the Lake District, who might chance to find fine weather
there, would be disappointed if they expected the falls to be equal to
the poet's description, since heavy rains are essential to produce all
the results described in his poem. But seen as we saw them, a torrential
flood of water rushing and roaring, the different streams of which they
were composed dashing into each other over the perpendicular cliffs on
every side, they presented a sight of grandeur and magnificence never to
be forgotten, while the trees around and above seemed to look on the
turmoil beneath them as if powerless, except to lend enchantment to the
impressive scene.
And dashing and flashing and splashing and clashing--
And so never ending, but always descending,
Sounds and motions for ever are blending.
All at once and all o'er, with a mighty uproar--
And this way the water comes down at Lodore!
The water rolled in great volumes down the crags, the spray rising in
clouds, and no doubt we saw the falls at their best despite the absence
of the sun. Near Lodore, and about 150 yards from the shore of
Derwentwater, was a floating island which at regular intervals of a few
years rises from the bottom exposing sometimes nearly an acre in extent,
and at others only a few perches. This island was composed of a mass of
decayed weeds and earthy matter, nearly six feet in thickness, covered
with vegetation, and full of air bubbles, which, it was supposed,
penetrated the whole mass and caused it to rise to the surface.
[Illustration: HEAD OF DERWENTWATER. "So we journeyed on in the rain
alongside the pretty lake of Derwentwater; ... with its nicely wooded
islands dotting its surface it recalled memories of Loch Lomond."]
By this time we had become quite accustomed to being out in the rain and
getting wet to the skin, but the temperature was gradually falling, and
we had to be more careful lest we should catch cold. It was very
provoking that we had to pass through the Lake District without seeing
it, but from the occasional glimpses we got between the showers we
certainly thought we were passing through the prettiest country in all
our travels. In Scotland the mountains were higher and the lakes, or
lochs, much larger, but the profiles of the hills here, at least of
those we saw, were prettier. About two miles from the Falls of Lodore we
arrived at the famous Bowder Stone. We had passed many crags and through
bewitching scenery, but we were absolutely astonished at the size of
this great stone, which Wordsworth has described as being like a
stranded ship:
Upon a semicirque of turf-clad ground,
A mass of rock, resembling, as it lay
Right at the foot of that moist precipice,
A stranded ship with keel upturned, that rests
Careless of winds and waves.
[Illustration: THE BOWDER STONE.]
The most modest estimate of the weight of the Bowder Stone was 1,771
tons, and we measured it as being 21 yards long and 12 yards high. This
immense mass of rock had evidently fallen from the hills above. We
climbed up the great stone by means of a ladder or flight of wooden
steps erected against it to enable visitors to reach the top. But the
strangest thing about it was the narrow base on which the stone rested,
consisting merely of a few narrow ledges of rock. We were told that
fifty horses could shelter under it, and that we could shake hands with
each other under the bottom of the stone, and although we could not test
the accuracy of the statement with regard to the number of horses it
could shelter, we certainly shook hands underneath it. To do this we had
to lie down, and it was not without a feeling of danger that we did so,
with so many hundreds of tons of rock above our heads, and the thought
that if the rock had given way a few inches we should have been reduced
to a mangled mass of blood and bones. Our friendly greeting was not of
long duration, and we were pleased when the ceremony was over. There is
a legend that in ancient times the natives of Borrowdale endeavoured to
wall in the cuckoo so that they might have perpetual spring, but the
story relates that in this they were not entirely successful, for the
cuckoo just managed to get over the wall. We now continued our journey
to find the famous Yew Trees of Borrowdale, which Wordsworth describes
in one of his pastorates as "those fraternal four of Borrowdale":
But worthier still of note
Are those fraternal four of Borrowdale,
Joined in one solemn and capacious grove;
Huge trunks! and each particular trunk a growth
Of intertwisted fibres serpentine
Up-coiling, and inveterately convolved;
Nor uniformed with Phantasy, and looks
That threaten the profane; a pillared shade,
From whose grassless floor of red-brown hue,
By sheddings from the pining umbrage tinged
Perennially--beneath whose sable roof
Of boughs, as if for festal purpose decked
With unrejoicing berries--ghostly shapes
May meet at noontide; Fear and trembling Hope,
Silence and Foresight; Death the Skeleton,
And Time the Shadow; there to celebrate,
As in a natural temple scattered o'er
With altars undisturbed of mossy stone,
United worship; or in mute repose
To lie, and listen to the mountain flood
Murmuring from Glaramara's inmost caves.
[Illustration: BORROWDALE AND SEATHWAITE]
It was a lonely place where the four yew trees stood, though not far
from the old black lead works which at one time produced the finest
plumbago for lead pencils in the world. As the rain was falling heavily,
we lit a fire under the largest of the four trees, which measured about
twenty-one feet in circumference at four feet from the ground, and
sheltered under its venerable shade for about an hour, watching a
much-swollen streamlet as it rolled down the side of a mountain.
Near the yew trees there was a stream which we had to cross, as our next
stage was over the fells to Grasmere; but when we came to its swollen
waters, which we supposed came from "Glaramara's inmost Caves," they
were not "murmuring" as Wordsworth described them, but coming with a
rush and a roar, and to our dismay we found the bridge broken down and
portions of it lying in the bed of the torrent. We thought of a stanza
in a long-forgotten ballad:
London Bridge is broken down!
Derry derry down, derry derry down!
Luckily we found a footbridge lower down the stream. It was now
necessary to inquire our way at one of the isolated farms in the
neighbourhood of Borrowdale, where the people knew very little of what
was going on in the world outside their own immediate environs. We heard
a story relating to the middle of the eighteenth century, when in the
absence of roads goods had to be carried on horseback. A rustic, who had
been sent for a bag of lime, the properties of which were unknown in
remote places, placed the bag on the back of his horse, and while he was
returning up the hills the rain came on, soaking the bag so that the
lime began to swell and smoke. The youth thought that it was on fire,
so, jumping off his horse, he filled his hat with water from the stream
and threw it on the bag. This only made matters worse, for the lime
began smoking more than ever; so he lifted it from the horse's back and
placed it in the water at the edge of the stream, where, in addition to
smoking, it began to boil and to make a hissing sound, which so
frightened the young man that he rode home in terror, feeling sure that
it was the Devil who had sneaked inside the bag!
We made our way to a farmhouse which we could see in the distance, but
the farmer advised us not to attempt to cross the fells, as it was misty
and not likely to clear up that day. So we turned back, and in about two
miles met a countryman, who told us we could get to Grasmere over what
he called the "Green Nip," a mountain whose base he pointed out to us.
We returned towards the hills, but we had anything but an easy walk, for
we could find no proper road, and walked on for hours in a "go as you
please" manner. Our whereabouts we did not know, since we could only see
a few yards before us. We walked a long way up hill, and finally landed
in some very boggy places, and when the shades of evening began to come
on we became a little alarmed, and decided to follow the running water,
as we had done on a very much worse occasion in the north of Scotland.
Presently we heard the rippling of a small stream, which we followed,
though with some difficulty, as it sometimes disappeared into the rocks,
until just at nightfall we came to a gate at the foot of the fells, and
through the open door of a cottage beheld the blaze of a tire burning
brightly inside. We climbed over the gate, and saw standing in the
garden a man who stared so hard at us, and with such a look of
astonishment, that we could not have helped speaking to him in any
case, even had he not been the first human being we had seen for many
hours. When we told him where we had come from, he said we might think
ourselves lucky in coming safely over the bogs on such a misty day, and
told us a story of a gentleman from Bradford who had sunk so deeply in
one of the bogs that only with the greatest difficulty had he been
rescued.
He told us it was his custom each evening to come out of his cottage for
a short time before retiring to rest, and that about a month before our
visit he had been out one night as usual after his neighbours had gone
to bed, and, standing at his cottage door, he thought he heard a faint
cry. He listened again: yes, he could distinctly hear a cry for help. He
woke up his neighbours, and they and his son, going in the direction
from which the cries came, found a gentleman fast in the rocks. He had
been on a visit to Grasmere, and had gone out for an afternoon's walk on
the fells, when the mist came on and he lost his way. As night fell he
tried to get between some rocks, when he slipped into a crevice and
jammed himself fast between them--fortunately for himself as it
afterwards proved, for when the rescuing party arrived, they found him
in such a dangerous position that, if he had succeeded in getting
through the rocks the way he intended, he would inevitably have fallen
down the precipice and been killed.
After hearing these stories, we felt very thankful we were safely off
the fells. Without knowing it, we had passed the scene of the Battle of
Dunmail Raise, where Dunmail, the last King of Cumbria, an old British
kingdom, was said to have been killed in 945 fighting against Edmund,
King of England.
The place we had stumbled upon after reaching the foot of the fells was
Wythburn, at the head of Thirlmere Lake, quite near Amboth Hall, with
its strange legends and associations. The mansion was said to be haunted
by supernatural visitors, midnight illuminations, and a nocturnal
marriage with a murdered bride. The most remarkable feature of the
story, however, was that of the two skulls from Calgarth Hall, near
Windermere, which came and joined in these orgies at Amboth Hall. These
skulls formerly occupied a niche in Calgarth Hall, from which it was
found impossible to dislodge them. They were said to have been buried,
burned, ground to powder, dispersed by the wind, sunk in a well, and
thrown into the lake, but all to no purpose, for they invariably
appeared again in their favourite niche until some one thought of
walling them up, which proved effectual, and there they still remain.
The rain had now ceased, and the moon, only three days old, was already
visible and helped to light us on our four-mile walk to Grasmere. On our
way we overtook a gentleman visitor, to whom we related our adventure,
and who kindly offered us a drink from his flask. We did not drink
anything stronger than tea or coffee, so we could not accept the whisky,
but we were glad to accept his guidance to the best inn at Grasmere,
where we soon relieved the cravings of our pedestrian appetites, which,
as might be imagined, had grown strongly upon us.
(_Distance walked twenty-two miles_.)
_Tuesday, October 17th._
GRASMERE. Our first duty in the morning was to call at the post office
for our letters from home, and then to fortify ourselves with a good
breakfast; our next was to see the graves of the poets in the
picturesque and quiet churchyard. We expected to find some massive
monuments, but found only plain stone flags marking their quiet
resting-places, particularly that of Wordsworth, which was inscribed:
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 1850
MARY WORDSWORTH 1859.
The grave of Hartley Coleridge, his great friend, who was buried in
1849, was also there. There are few who do not know his wonderful poem,
"The Ancient Mariner," said to have been based on an old manuscript
story of a sailor preserved in the Bristol Library. Strange to say, not
far from his grave was that of Sir John Richardson, a physician and
arctic explorer, who brought home the relics of Sir John Franklin's
ill-fated and final voyage to the Arctic regions to discover the
North-West Passage. This brought to our minds all the details of that
sorrowful story which had been repeatedly told to us in our early
childhood, and was, to our youthful minds, quite as weird as that of
"The Ancient Mariner."
[Illustration: GRASMERE CHURCH.]
Sir John Franklin was born in 1786. Intended by his parents for the
Church, but bent on going to sea, he joined the Royal Navy when he was
fourteen years of age, and served as a midshipman on the _Bellerophon_
at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, afterwards taking part in Captain
Flinders' voyage of discovery along the coast of Australia. His first
voyage to the Arctic Regions was in 1818, and after a long and eventful
career he was created Governor of Van Diemen's Land in 1837, whither
criminals convicted of grave offences involving transportation for life
were sent from England, where he did much for the improvement and
well-being of the colony.
On May 19th, 1845, he left England with the two ships _Erebus_ and
_Terror_, having on board 28 officers and 111 men--in all 134 souls--on
a voyage to the Arctic Regions in the hope of discovering the North-West
Passage. They reached Stromness, in the Orkneys, on July 1st, and were
afterwards seen and spoken to in the North Sea by the whaler _Prince of
Wales_, belonging to Hull. After that all was blank.
Lady Franklin did not expect to receive any early news from her husband,
but when two years passed away without her hearing from him, she became
anxious, and offered a large reward for any tidings of him. In 1848 old
explorers went out to search for him, but without result. Still
believing he was alive, she sent out other expeditions, and one was even
dispatched from America. All England was roused, and the sympathy of the
entire nation was extended to Lady Franklin.
Nine long years passed away, but still no news, until intelligence
arrived that an Eskimo had been found wearing on his head a gold
cap-band which he said he had picked up where "the dead white men were."
Lady Franklin then made a final effort, and on July 1st, 1857, Captain
McClintock sailed from England in the _Fox_. In course of time the
matter was cleared up. It was proved that the whole of the expedition
had perished, Sir John Franklin having died on June 11th, 1847. Many
relics were found and brought back to England.
[Illustration: DOVE COTTAGE.]
Lady Franklin, who died in 1875, was still alive at the time we passed
through Grasmere. One of her last acts was to erect a marble monument to
Sir John Franklin in Westminster Abbey, and it was her great wish to
write the epitaph herself, but as she died before this was accomplished,
it was written by Alfred Tennyson, a nephew of Sir John by marriage, and
read as follows:
Not here! the white North hath thy bones, and thou
Heroic Sailor Soul!
Art passing on thy happier voyage now
Towards no earthly pole.
Dean Stanley added a note to the effect that the monument was "Erected
by his widow, who, after long waiting and sending many in search of him,
herself departed to seek and to find him in the realms of light, 18th
July, 1875, aged eighty-three years."
But to return to Grasmere. Wordsworth lived there from 1803 to 1809 at
the Dove Cottage, of which, in the first canto of "The Waggoner," he
wrote:
For at the bottom of the brow
Where once the "Dove and Olive-Bough"
Offered a greeting of good ale
To all who entered Grasmere Vale;
And called on him who must depart
To leave it with a jovial heart;
There, where the "Dove and Olive-Bough"
Once hung, a poet harbours now,
A simple water-drinking Bard.
When Wordsworth moved to Rydal Mount, this cottage, which had formerly
been a public-house, was taken by that master of English prose, Thomas
de Quincey, author of the _Confessions of an English Opium Eater_.
[Illustration: RYDAL MOUNT.]
[Illustration: THE POET'S SEAT, RYDAL WATER.]
Wordsworth had the habit of reciting his poetry aloud as he went along
the road, and on that account the inhabitants thought he was not quite
sane. When Hartley Coleridge, his great friend, asked an old man who was
breaking stones on the road if he had any news, he answered, "Why, nowte
varry partic'lar; only awd Wordsworth's brokken lowse ageean!" (had
another fit of madness). On another occasion, a lady visitor asked a
woman in the village whether Wordsworth made himself agreeable among
them. "Well," she said, "he sometimes goes booin' his pottery about
t'rooads an' t'fields an' tak's na nooatish o' neabody, but at udder
times he'll say 'Good morning, Dolly,' as sensible as owder you or me."
The annual sports held at Grasmere were of more than local interest, and
the Rush-bearing was still kept up, but not quite in the manner
prevalent in earlier centuries. When heating apparatus was unknown in
churches, the rushes were gathered, loaded in a cart, and taken to the
church, where they were placed on the floor and in the pews to keep the
feet of the worshippers warm while they were in the church, being
removed and replenished each year when the rush-bearing festival came
round again. One of our earliest recollections was sitting amongst the
rushes on the floor of a pew in the ancient country church at Lymm in
Cheshire.
[Illustration: WORDSWORTH'S GRAVE.]
An item in the Church Book at Grasmere, dating from the seventeenth
century, recorded the cost of "Ye ale bestowed on ye Rush Bearers,"
while in 1830 gingerbread appeared to have been substituted or added as
a luxury to "ye ale."
We passed alongside the pretty lakes of Grasmere and Rydal Water amid
beautiful scenery. Mrs. Hemans, in her sonnet, "A remembrance of
Grasmere," wrote:
O vale and lake, within your mountain urn,
Smiling so tranquilly, and set so deep!
Oft doth your dreamy loveliness return.
Colouring the tender shadows of my sleep.
Your shores in melting lustre, seem to float
On golden clouds from spirit-lands, remote
Isles of the blest:--and in our memory keep
Their place with holiest harmonies. Fair scene
Most loved by Evening and her dewy star!
Oh! ne'er may man, with touch unhallow'd, jar
The perfect music of the charm serene:
Still, still unchanged, may _one_ sweet region wear
Smiles that subdue the soul to love, and tears, and prayer!
On our way to Ambleside we passed Rydal Mount, Wordsworth's residence
until his death in 1850 in the eightieth year of his age. Mrs. Hemans
has described it as "a lovely cottage-like building, almost hidden by a
profusion of roses and ivy." Ambleside was a great centre for tourists
and others, being situated at the head of the fine Lake of Windermere,
to which its admirers were ambitious enough to apply Sir Walter Scott's
lines on Loch Katrine:
In all her length far winding lay
With promontory, creek, and bay,
And islands that impurpled bright
Floated amid the livelier light.
And mountains that like Giants stand
To sentinel enchanted land.
There was a Roman camp which we proposed visiting, and possibly
Helvellyn, but we were compelled for a time to seek refuge in one of the
hotels from the rain. There we met a gentleman, a resident in the
locality, who was what we might describe as a religious enthusiast, for
he had a very exalted opinion of the Vicar of Ambleside, whom he
described as a "Christian man"--a term obviously making distinctions
among vicars with which we heartily agreed. There must have been an
atmosphere of poetry in the Lake District affecting both visitors and
natives, for in a small valley, half a mile from a lonely chapel, stood
the only inn, bearing the strange sign of "The Mortal Man" on which some
native poet, but not Wordsworth, had written:
O Mortal Man, who liv'st on bread,
What is't that makes thy nose so red?--
Thou silly ass, that looks so pale.
It is with drinking Burkett's ale.
[Illustration: THE OLD MILL AT AMBLESIDE.]
Immediately behind Ambleside there was a fearfully steep road leading up
to the head of Kirkstone Pass, where at an altitude of quite 1,400 feet
stood the "Travellers' Rest Inn." In our time walking was the only means
of crossing the pass, but now visitors are conveyed up this hill in
coaches, but as the gradient is so steep in some parts, they are
invariably asked to walk, so as to relieve the horses a little, a fact
which found expression in the Visitors' Book at the "Travellers' Rest"
in the following lines:
He surely is an arrant ass
Who pays to ride up Kirkstone Pass,
For he will find, in spite of talking,
He'll have to walk and pay for walking.
Three parts of Windermere is in Lancashire, and it is the largest and
perhaps the deepest water in the Lake District, being ten and a half
miles long by water, and thirteen miles by road along its shores; the
water is at no point more than two miles broad. It is said to maintain
the same level at the upper end whether it rains or not, and is so clear
that in some places the fish can plainly be seen swimming far beneath
its surface. The islands are clustered together at its narrowest part,
by far the largest being Belle Isle, a finely wooded island with a
mansion in the centre, and a noted stronghold of the Royalists during
the Civil War, at which time it was in the possession of the ancient
Westmorland family of Phillipson. We did not walk alongside Windermere,
but passed by the head of the lake to the old-world village of
Hawkshead, and called at the quaint old-fashioned inn known by the
familiar sign of the "Red Lion." While tea was being prepared we
surveyed the village, and on a stone in the churchyard we found the
following epitaph:
This stone can boast as good a wife
As ever lived a married life,
And from her marriage to her grave
She was never known to mis-behave.
The tongue which others seldom guide,
Was never heard to blame or chide;
From every folly always free
She was what others ought to be.
[Illustration: HAWKSHEAD SQUARE AND INN.]
We had a long talk with the mistress of the inn, who told us that
Wordsworth was educated at the Grammar School in the village, and we
were surprised to hear from her that the Rev. Richard Greenall, whom we
had often heard officiate when he was curate of our native village of
Grappenhall, was now the vicar of Hawkshead. We had quite as exalted an
opinion of him as the gentleman we met at Ambleside had of his vicar.
He was a clergyman who not only read the prayers, but prayed them at the
same time:
I often say my prayers,
But do I ever pray?
and it was a pleasure to listen to the modulations of his voice as he
recited the Lord's Prayer, and especially when repeating that fine
supplication to the Almighty, beginning with the words "Almighty and
most merciful Father." At that time it was not the custom to recite,
read, or sing the prayers in one continual whine on one note (say G
sharp) when offering up supplications to the Almighty--a note which if
adopted by a boy at school would have ensured for him a severe caning,
or by a beggar at your door a hasty and forcible departure. Nor were the
Lessons read in a monotone, which destroys all sense of their full
meaning being imparted to the listeners--but this was in the "good old
times"!
[Illustration: CONISTON.]
We had to listen to another version of the story of the two Calgarth
skulls, from which it appeared that the Phillipsons wanted a piece of
land that belonged to Dorothy, the wife of Kraster Cook, who refused to
sell it, although asked repeatedly to do so. Myles Phillipson swore he
would have that land "be they alive or dead." After a quiet interval he
invited Kraster and his wife Dorothy to a feast, and afterwards accused
them of stealing a silver cup. This they strongly denied, but the cup
was found in their house, where it had been purposely hidden by the
squire's orders. Stealing was at that time a capital offence, and as
Phillipson was the magistrate he sentenced them both to death. In the
court-room Dorothy arose, and, glaring at the magistrate, said loudly,
"Guard thyself, Myles Phillipson. Thou thinkest thou hast managed
grandly; but that tiny lump of land is the dearest a Phillipson has ever
bought or stolen; for you will never prosper, neither your breed:
whatever scheme you undertake will wither in your hand; the side you
take will always lose; the time shall come when no Phillipson will own
one inch of land; and while Calgarth walls shall stand, we'll haunt it
night and day--never will ye be rid of us." They were both executed and
their property appropriated, but ever afterwards the Phillipsons had two
skulls for their guests. They were found at Christmas at the head of a
stairway; they were buried in a distant region, but they turned up in
the old house again; they were brazed to dust and cast to the wind; they
were several years sunk in the lake; but the Phillipsons never could get
rid of them. Meanwhile old Dorothy's prophecy came true, and the family
of Phillipson came to poverty and eventually disappeared.
We left Hawkshead by a road leading to Ulverston, for we had decided to
visit Furness Abbey. Had the weather been fine and clear, we should have
had some splendid views, since we had Windermere on one side and
Coniston Water on the other; but the showers continued, and we could not
even see the "Coniston Old Man," although he raised his head to the
height of 2,577 feet above sea-level. We were, in fact, passing through
the district of Seathwaite, where the rainfall is very much heavier than
in any other district in England. We consoled ourselves, however, with
the thought that we could not expect to see fine lakes in a land where
there was no rainfall, and after walking a considerable distance in the
darkness, two weary and rain-soddened pedestrians took refuge for the
remainder of the night in the well-appointed Temperance Hotel at
Ulverston.
(_Distance walked twenty-four and a half miles_.)
_Wednesday, October 18th._
Ulverston has been described as the "Key to the Lake District," and
Swartmoor, which adjoined the town, took its name from a German--Colonel
Martin Swart---to whom the Duchess of Burgundy in 1486 gave the command
of about 2,000 Flemish troops sent to support the pretended title of
Lambert Simnel to the Crown of England. He landed in Ireland, where a
great number of the Irish joined him, and then, crossing over to
England, landed in Furness and marshalled his troops on the moor which
still bears his name, and where he was joined by many other
conspirators. They encountered the forces of King Henry VII near
Newark-on-Trent in June 1487, and after a stubborn fight were defeated,
4,000 men, with all their commanders, being killed.
Ulverston is also associated with George Fox, the founder of the Society
of Friends. He was born in 1624, at Drayton-on-the-Clay, in
Leicestershire, and in 1650 was imprisoned at Derby for speaking
"publickly" in a church after Divine Service, and bidding the
congregation to "_tremble at the Word of God_." This expression was
turned into one of ridicule, and caused the Society of Friends all over
the kingdom to be known as "Quakers." Fox preached throughout the
country, and even visited America. When he came to Ulverston, he
preached at Swartmoor Hall, where he converted Judge Fell and his wife,
after which meetings at the Hall were held regularly. The judge died in
1658, and in 1669, eleven years after her husband's death, Mrs. Fell,
who suffered much on account of her religion, married George Fox, who in
1688 built the Meeting-house at Ulverston. He died two years
afterwards, aged sixty-seven years, at White Hart Court, London, and
was buried in Banhill Fields.
Leaving our bags at the hotel, we walked to Furness Abbey, which,
according to an old record, was founded by King Stephen in 1127 in the
"Vale of the Deadly Nightshade." It was one of the first to surrender to
King Henry VIII at the dissolution of the monasteries, and the Deed of
Surrender, dated April 9th, 1537, was still in existence, by which the
abbey and all its belongings were assigned to the King by the Abbot,
Roger Pile, who in exchange for his high position agreed to accept the
living of Dalton, one of his own benefices, valued at that time at £40
per year. The Common Seal of the abbey was attached to the document, and
represented the Virgin Mary standing in the centre of the circle with
the Infant in her left arm and a globe in her right hand. She stood
between two shields of arms, which were suspended by bundles of
nightshade, and on each of which were represented the three Lions of
England, each shield being supported from the bottom by a monk in his
full dress and cowl. In the foreground in front of each monk was a plant
of the deadly nightshade, and over his head a sprig of the same, while
in the lower part was the figure of a wivern--_i.e._ a viper or dragon
with a serpent-like tail--this being the device of Thomas Plantagenet,
the second Earl of Lancaster, who was highly esteemed by the monks. We
did not notice any nightshade plant either in or near the ruins of the
abbey, but it was referred to in Stell's description of Becan-Gill as
follows:
_Hæc vallis unuit olim sibi nomen ab herba Bekan, qua virtuit dulcis
nune, tune sed acerbe; unde Domus nomen Bekangs-Gille claruit._
[Illustration: FURNESS ABBEY]
Although my brother could repeat the first two rules in the Latin
Grammar with their examples, one of which he said meant "The way to
good manners is never too late," he would not attempt the English
translation of these Latin words.
We were the only visitors then at the abbey, no doubt owing to the bad
state of the weather, and we were surprised at the extent and
magnificence of the ruins and the ponderous walls and archways, with
their fine ornamentations, impressive reminders of their past greatness.
In order to get a better view we mounted the adjoining hill, from which
we could see a portion of the rising town of Barrow-in-Furness. We
returned by the footpath alongside the railway, and entered into
conversation with a man who was standing on the line. He informed us
that he was the ganger, or foreman, over the plate-layers on the
railway, and that at one time he had lived in Manchester. He also said
he had joined the Good Templars, who were making headway in
Barrow-in-Furness, where he now resided.
Just before reaching the main road we were somewhat startled to see a
railway train quite near the abbey ruins, and the thought of home, sweet
home, accentuated by the rainy weather, came so strongly upon us that we
asked ourselves the question, "Shall we give in and go home!" We were
only the length of one county away, and about to make a long detour to
avoid going near, yet here was the train waiting that would convey us
thither. What a temptation! But for the circumstance that we had left
our bags at Ulverston our story might have ended here.
Some of the streams over which we passed on our way were quite red in
colour, and the puddles on the muddy roads were just like dark red
paint, indicating the presence of iron ore. We saw several miners, who
told us that they got the ore (known as haematite, or iron oxide) at a
depth of from 90 to 100 yards, working by candle-light, and that they
received about 2s. 6d. per ton as the product of their labour. The ore,
it seemed, filled up large cavities in the mountain limestone. It was
about one o'clock by the time we reached Ulverston again, and we were
quite ready for the good lunch which had been prepared for us.
[Illustration: THE NORTH TRANSEPT, FURNESS ABBEY.]
Leaving Ulverston, we passed the old parish church and entered a
picturesque footpath quite appropriately named the Lover's Walk and
covered with fine trees, through which we had glimpses of Morecambe Bay;
but the lovers had been either driven away by the rain or we were too
early in the day for them to take their walks abroad. We mounted the
Hoad Hill to inspect a lofty monument which had been erected on the top
in the year 1850, in memory of Sir John Barrow. Sir John, the founder of
the great works at Barrow-in-Furness (afterwards Vickers, Sons & Maxim),
the noise of which we had heard in the distance, was a native of the
district, having been born in a small cottage near Ulverston in 1764. He
travelled in China and South Africa, and in 1804 became Secretary to the
Admiralty, a position he held for forty years, during which he took part
in fitting out Lord Nelson's fleet for the Battle of Trafalgar. He also
assisted in promoting the expedition to the Arctic Regions which was
commanded by Sir John Franklin. We were informed that his favourite
saying was: "A man's riches consist not so much in his possessions as in
the fewness of his wants"--a saying we were glad to adopt for ourselves.
We passed through the entrance to the monument, but could see no one
about. On a desk in the entrance-room lay a Visitors' Book, in which we
wrote our names, and then ascended to the top of the monument by a
rather dangerous staircase of over a hundred steps. As the well of the
tower was open from top to bottom the ascent and descent were very risky
for nervous people, and we felt thankful when we reached the foot of the
staircase safely, though disappointed because the weather had prevented
our enjoying the splendid view from the top that we had anticipated. As
we were leaving the monument we met an old man who had charge of it,
carrying some large mushrooms, which he told us he had seen from the top
of the monument, and very fine ones they were too.
[Illustration: ULVERSTON, BARROWS MONUMENT IN THE DISTANCE.]
But we are forgetting to mention that we had passed through
Dalton--formerly the capital of Furness--where George Romney, the
celebrated painter, was born in 1734. West, the inventor of the key
bugle, the forerunner of the modern cornet, was also a native of
Dalton-in-Furness. As the days were rapidly becoming shorter and the
gloomy weather made them appear shorter still, it was growing quite dark
when we called for tea at a village inn, the sign on which informed us
that it was "Clarke's Arms," and where we were very quickly served in
the parlour. During our tea a tall, haggard-looking man, whose hands
were trembling and whose eyes were bloodshot, entered the room, and
asked us to have a glass each with him at his expense, saying, "I'm
drunken Jim Topping as 'as had aw that heap o' money left him." He
pressed us very hard again and again to have the drink, but we showed
him the tea we were drinking, and we felt relieved when the landlord
came in and persuaded him to go into the other room, where we soon heard
an uproarious company helping "Jim" to spend his "heap o' money" and to
hasten him into eternity. The landlord afterwards informed us that
"Drunken Jim" was a stonemason by trade, and that a relation of his had
just died, leaving him £80,000, as well as some property.
[Illustration: SIR JOHN BARROW'S MONUMENT.]
It was dark when we left the inn, and about a mile farther, on the
Kendal road, we saw, apparently crossing the road, a large number of
glowworms, which, owing to the darkness of the night, showed to the best
advantage. So numerous were they that we had great difficulty in getting
over them, for we did not wish to crush any under our feet. We had never
seen more than two or three together before, so it was quite a novel
sight for us to find so many in one place. Presently we arrived at the
entrance to a small village, where our attention was arrested by a great
noise in a building a little distance from the road. The sound of
juvenile voices predominated, and as my brother was a great lover of
children, and especially of girls, as illustrated by a remark he was
partial to--"Girls and flowers are the nicest things that heaven sends
us"--we must needs stop and see what was going on. Climbing up some
steps and passing under some trees, we found, as we had surmised, the
village school. After looking through the windows we entered the
schoolroom, whereupon the noise immediately ceased. We ascertained that
it was the village choir awaiting the arrival of the schoolmistress to
teach them the hymns to be sung in the church on the following Sunday.
My brother insisted that he had come to teach the choir that night, and
went at once to the harmonium, which was unfortunately locked. He said
he would no doubt be able to go on without it, and, having arranged the
choir in order, was just about to commence operations when who should
come in but the schoolmistress herself, causing us to beat a rather
hasty retreat. We groped our way under the trees again and down the
steps, and were quite surprised when suddenly we found ourselves close
to a comfortable inn where we could be accommodated for the night. After
supper we retired to rest, wondering whether we were to pass the night
in Lancashire or Westmorland, for we had no idea where we were, and,
strange to say, we forgot to ask the name of the place when we left in
the morning.
(_Distance walked nineteen miles_.)
_Thursday, October 19th._
We left the inn at eight o'clock in the morning, but the weather still
continued very rainy, and we had often to seek shelter on our way owing
to the heavy showers. Presently we came to a huge heap of charcoal, and
were about to shelter near it when we were told that it was part of the
gunpowder works in the rear, so we hurried away as fast as we could
walk, for we did not relish the possibility of being blown into millions
of atoms. When we reached what we thought was a fairly safe distance, we
took refuge in an outbuilding belonging to a small establishment for
smelting iron, and here we were joined by another wayfarer, sheltering
like ourselves from the rain, which was coming down in torrents. He told
us about the stonemason who had recently had the fortune left to him,
but he said the amount mentioned in the newspaper was £40,000 and not
£80,000, as we had been informed. He wished the money had been left to
him, as he thought he could have put it to better use, for he had been
an abstainer from intoxicating drinks for twelve years, whereas the man
with the fortune, who at the moment was drinking in a beerhouse close
by, had no appetite for eating and would soon drink himself to death.
What the fate of poor "Jim Topping" was we never knew, but we could not
help feeling sorry for him, as he seemed to us one of those good-natured
fellows who are nobody's enemy but their own. The man told us that Jim
was a heavy drinker before he had the fortune left him. He surmised that
the place we had stopped at last night was Haverthwaite in Lancashire.
We saw a book of poems written in the Cumberland dialect, and copied the
first and last verses of one that was about a Robin Redbreast: